2024-03-23 20:56:45
BOLZANO. The Museion, museum of modern and contemporary art in Bolzano, announces that the artist of Italian-Tunisian origins Many Ben Hamoudas is the winner of the prestigious VG Award of 60,000 Swiss francs awarded by Fondazione Vordemberge-Gildewart. The prize is awarded every year by the Foundation, based in Rapperswil in Switzerland, in collaboration with a European exhibition institution to an artist aged up to 35 from the selected region.
For 2024, Museion has been chosen as a partner, and the 15 artists of the mostra RENAISSANCE formed the basis for the selection of the winner by an independent international jury.
On March 22, shortly after the inauguration, the winner was announced within the exhibition, chosen by the jury who saw the artists’ works for the first time, selected by the curator of Museion Leonie Radine.
These are the words of the jury: «Monia Ben Hamouda’s works immediately release a sensorial power. The jury was struck by the compositional balance with which the artist manages to make colours, shapes, smells and light interact in a coherent way. They hang wide from the ceiling filigree sculptures in laser-cut iron. They show Arabic style calligraphic lettering, among which figurative elements such as owls and hands appear. Below them, a gestural landscape of spices unfolds in rich, earthy colors that fill the room with their scent. At the same time, the shadows of the hanging iron sculptures echo on the wall.
It is fascinating how Monia Ben Hamouda honors the tradition of Arabic calligraphy in her works and at the same time shapes theurgency of figurative expression, despite the Islamic ban on figurative representation. The spice carpet, which seems to have been created by spontaneous gestures, as well as the hands depicted in the hanging iron sculpture, speak of an act of liberation with which the artist transfers his cultural heritage into the here and now. The jury was struck by the installation as a whole, extremely captivating and poetic, and by its depth of content, which tells of a migratory past. The way in which Monia Ben Hamouda translates the complex theme into a gesture of love, which simultaneously radiates determination and strength, seems to us to indicate the path to an intercultural dialogue conducted with openness and mutual respect.”
2024-03-23 20:56:45